“Just as the personalization of the aspects of Essence leads to the synthesis of all such personalized aspects, the personalization of the various dimensions— the objective dimensions of Essence and ...”
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"First, I wanted to say I am quite heartened and happy with the ongoing discussions and conversations that this contemplation invited. I am so glad that many saw the value of such inquiry, that we do not have to protect our particular spiritual real estate, but be generous and open to dialogue with others who hold different points of view. I wanted to point to the preciousness of each teaching, but wanted to do it while honoring their uniqueness and particular contribution to mankind’s learning of the spiritual way of Being." Continue Reading »

The only knowledge we have of a world is our experience. What is the nature of experience, and how does it happen? What are the means through which the nature of experience and how it happens may be discovered?

In this conversation with Rupert Spira and A. H. Almaas we will explore the nature and dynamic of experience, and their two distinct approaches to that inquiry.

A good arena within which to recognize, understand, and deal with the superego is in our relationships with others. This is primarily because one frequently projects one’s superego onto certain individuals, and relates to them as one does to one's own superego. Of course, this defense mechanism of projection helps to keep the superego unconscious, just as any defense mechanism does. Work on the Super-Ego, p. 8 • discuss »

So the superego which was erected to preserve and protect life, becomes a coercive agency that leads to death, not only in the mental, emotional, and spiritual sense; but sometimes also in the physical sense, as in the case of psychosomatic illness and self-destructive behavior. Work on the Super-Ego, p. 5 • discuss »

The superego is that part of the person that maintains repression and fights any changes to the status quo. It is one of the main reasons why the ego defenses are needed (defending against painful ego states and maintaining ego structuresbeing the others); and hence it is responsible for the presence of prejudices, overt and covert. Work on the Super-Ego, p. 5 • discuss »

The superego, as we have seen, is the first coercive agency that we encounter in working on ourselves, which we find to be invested in keeping the unconscious unconscious and which accomplishes this by disapproving of the unconscious material. So, our approach is to help the ego consciously defend itself against the attacks of the superego, and hence to eliminate this important part of the need for unconscious ego defense mechanisms. If this is done, some awareness of feelings and sensations will bring up the part of the unconscious disapproved of by the superego, now that the ego is not guarding against it. Work on the Super-Ego, p. 6 • discuss »

Whenever a person works within a certain system, the values and prejudices of that system are automatically incorporated into his superego, and in time become coercive agencies. Or, to put it more graphically, the individual develops the particular system's superego. Work on the Super-Ego, p. 6 • discuss »

The superego does not usually attack you because Brilliancy is missing. Your superego doesn't know about Brilliancy, so it attacks you about whatever sense of deficiency it finds in your experience. Under normal circumstances, there is a misinterpretation of the hole, or lack of Brilliancy; it is not seen as the absence of a certain manifestation of your Being. Instead, your superego attacks you, saying you’re too short, your nose is crooked, you're dumb, you say things wrong, you never know which foot to put first—that kind of thing. That is the way your superego picks on you: It finds those little incompletenesses and attacks you for them. But when you understand that incompleteness has nothing to do with these things, you will have a deeper handle on your superego. Completeness happens by confronting and completely tolerating the incompleteness. So your superego, by attacking you for feeling incomplete, is really preventing you from getting closer and relaxing into your own true nature, which is complete. Brilliancy, p. 74 • discuss »

The first way works well during the stage one of the journey when our awareness is not strong, our presence is not developed, and our inquiry is not yet skillful. That’s when we need to directly defend ourselves, to own up to our aggression and to use its strength and energy to throw the superego out, to create space to be where we are. In this way, we defend ourselves consciously—by using our strength instead of erecting walls, defenses, and resistance to protect us from dangers of the superego.
In the early years of our practice of being where we are, we need to constantly recognize the superego and its ploys and learn how to defend against them. Basically, we need to tell the superego where to go: “Who cares what you think? Go to hell.” Okay, so you feel deficient, and the superego keeps insisting that you’ll never amount to anything. You can tell it, “Good—if I’m never going to amount to anything, why are you bothering me? Go find somebody else.” This is a way of disengaging, but with strength, with energy, with awareness. The The Unfolding Now, p. 66 • discuss »

The second stage of working with the superego begins after we have learned to defend against it with strength, boldness, and aggressiveness. These are energies that we have taken back and owned and therefore can use. Our awareness is now strong and clear, and our inquiry skills are sufficiently developed to prevent a superego attack from confusing us or putting us into a tailspin. At this point, using aggression to defend ourselves is less important; simply recognizing and understanding an attack can counter it. We can often dissolve an attack simply by knowing that the superego is attacking us and understanding why.The Unfolding Now, p. 67 • discuss »